The airline was established in 2000 and started operations on January 15, 2001 with a flight from Brasília to São Paulo.[7] It is a subsidiary of the Brazilian conglomerate Grupo Áurea, based in Minas Geraisstate, which has other transportation interests, including Brazil's largest long-distance bus company. Grupo Áurea in turn is owned by the Constantino family. Constantino Júnior was responsible for building the business next to the vice president of the company, David Barioni.[8][9]

On June 24, 2004 Gol launched simultaneous initial public offerings on the New York and São Paulo stock exchanges. In 2007, Gol was owned by AeroPar Participações (75.5%), Venture (17.6%), American International Group (5.4%) and Air France-KLM (1,5%).[10] The growth in Gol's stock price made the Constantino family a member of the Forbes magazine billionaire list in 2005.

In 2007, Gol was supposed to begin a code-share agreement with TAP Portugal, opening the European market to the Brazilian airline, and the internal Brazilian market to the Portuguese airline (the largest foreign airline in Brazil). Instead, TAP Portugal chose to cooperate with TAM Airlines (TAM Linhas Aéreas).[11]

On February 24, 2010 Gol announced it was in "advanced talks" to join Oneworld alliance,[12] which would allow it to catch up with rival TAM, a recent member of Star Alliance. However, on October 6, 2010, the airline announced a change in position by denying any interest in joining an alliance, preferring to remain independent and to establish a "patchwork of code-sharing agreements."[13] Following this trend, on September 28, 2011 Gol and Aerolíneas Argentinas announced the intention to implement a codeshare, feeder and frequent flyer programs agreement on a date yet to be announced and pending approval from the governments of Brazil and Argentina.[14]

On December 23, 2010, Gol Airlines started an operational partnership with Brazilian carrier Passaredo Linhas Aéreas. The agreement was rescinded on July 31, 2014, when Passaredo established a similar interline agreement with TAM Airlines instead.[18]

On December 7, 2011, Gol announced the intention of Delta Air Lines to purchase 3% of its shares.[19] The agreement also includes the creation of mutual code-share flights, alignment of frequent flyer benefits and transfer of Gol's Boeing 767s lease agreements to Delta.[20]

On October 1, 2012, Gol confirmed a firm order of 60 Boeing 737 MAXs. References did not specify the type of MAX aircraft.[21][22]

On October 6, 2012, Gol started seasonal operations to Miami and Orlando, available for Smiles account holders and originating in Brazil only. Technically, they are considered charter flights, although they are not necessarily part of an inclusive tour package; the use of miles or miles plus money is mandatory, as well as a minimum 7-day stay at the destination.[23]

Some disagreement exists as to whether Gol is a low-cost carrier. In 2014, Gol was ranked the second best low-cost airline in South America after Azul.[25] Gol refers to itself as a low-cost carrier, but it is increasingly not regarded as such. According to UFRJ specialist Elton Fernandes, "Gol's costs are not very different from those of TAM Airlines. People are accustomed to calling Gol low-cost, but Gol is not that. It is not even low-fare anymore."[26]

On March 28, 2007 Gol officially purchased part of the assets of VARIG - VRG Linhas Aéreas, informally known as the "new Varig," a new company that owned the Varig brand, for US$320 million from Volo Group and MatlinPatterson Global Opportunieshedge fund. At that time, the "old Varig" was under bankruptcy protection.

Gol announced that the Varig brand would continue doing business operating as such, rather than its official name VRG Linhas Aéreas.[27] The transaction, via its GTI subsidiary, required a US$98 million cash payment, with the balance through the allocation of non-voting shares to VARIG Logística and Volo, which had acquired VARIG in June 2006 for US$24 million.[28] The transaction did not involve the original airline, informally known as "old Varig," which continued to exist until its own bankruptcy in mid-2010 under the name Flex Linhas Aéreas.

In 2009 Gol was merged into VRG Linhas Aéreas. VRG Linhas Aéreas thus became an airline that operates two brands: Gol and Varig, although in reality flights are operated only under Gol flight numbers. Initially, the Varig brand operated to medium-haul scheduled and charter international destinations within South America and to the Caribbean with Boeing 737-700's configured in two classes, and to long-haul charter international destinations in North America, Europe and Africa with Boeing 767-300ERs configured in economy only. The latter were also used in wet-lease operations.[29] This scheme was later dropped. The brand Gol operates most of the flights of the network, and had aircraft configured in all-economy class, used for scheduled domestic and international operations within South America.

Because of contractual obligations, between 2006 and 2009 the "new Varig" (VRG Linhas Aéreas) was obliged to purchase a minimum of 140 hours/month of services from the "old Varig" (Flex Linhas Aéreas). Therefore, at that time, some of VRG Linhas Aéreas flights operated with Gol flight numbers but were actually flown with chartered aircraft from Flex Linhas Aéreas. The agreement ceased before the bankruptcy of Flex on August 20, 2010.[30]

On July 9, 2011, VRG Linhas Aéreas, owner of the brands Gol and Varig, announced the intention to purchase full control of WebJet Linhas Aéreas.[31] The purchase contract was signed on August 2, 2011.[32] On October 10, 2012 the purchase received its final approval with some operational restrictions from the Brazilian regulatory agency.[33] Services were integrated but both companies continued to operate independently for some weeks.[34][35] Integration started on October 17, 2012 when sales requested via Webjet's web-portal started to be redirected to Gol's site.[36] However, on November 23, 2012 Webjet abruptly ceased to operate and all services were incorporated by Gol. The Webjet brand ceased to exist.[34][35] Gol also announced its intention to return all of Webjet's Boeing 737-300s to lessors until the end of the first quarter of 2013. There was no mention to the fate of Webjet's 737-800s.[37]